Avondale: Genesco cream of the footwear crop
Posted on November 16, 2009 at 8:22 am
David Turner at Avondale Partners has conducted the channel checks and says athletic clothing sales are lagging big time. But the so-called “black/brown/casual” sector showed third-quarter growth of more than 4 percent, which plays right into the hands of Nashville-based Genesco, Turner’s only outperform-rated stock (Ticker: GCO).
Our street-high Q3′10 (current quarter) EPS estimate of $0.46 is now visible, in our opinion, as is Q4, the company’s highest volume quarter. If our secular thesis is to be believed, more upside remains to GCO’s earnings.
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China powers Nissan’s profit recovery
Posted on November 13, 2009 at 9:08 amThe world’s largest country is now also single-handedly responsible for the brighter profit outlook at Nissan. Year-to-date sales in the Middle Kingdom are up 25 percent from a year ago, but October numbers spiked by more than 70 percent.
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Only 30%?
Posted on November 12, 2009 at 8:20 am
An NPD study says three out of 10 people will cut back on their holiday spending this year, which is expected to be the second straight of negative seasonal retail sales. Strikes me as a little low, especially when Wal-Mart just reported negative same-store sales.
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Big wheels driving Nissan sales
Posted on November 4, 2009 at 9:20 am
Nissan North America’s truck sales rose more than 17 percent last month, helping the Franklin-based auto maker post an overall volume increase of almost 8 percent. Shipments of Infiniti-brand vehicles, however, fell almost 10 percent.
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CBL’s progress and stability
Posted on at 7:57 amThe boss of Chattanooga-based mall operator CBL — which runs three of the Nashville area’s largest shopping hubs — says he’s encouraged by “improving trends.” Occupancy rates rose by at least one percentage point in every one of the company’s categories, but shoppers appear to be giving smaller operators an especially hard time: Same-store sales for tenants occupying less than 10,000 square feet fell more than 6 percent from a year ago.
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Another sign the Southeast consumer is hurtin’
Posted on November 2, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Grocery chain Publix, which runs 1,000 stores around the region, earned $255 million during the third quarter, up from $202 million a year ago. But same-store sales fell 4.7 percent versus a drop of ‘just’ 2.7 percent in the first half of this year.
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O’Charley’s walks the fine value line
Posted on October 29, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Jeff Warne, the CEO of O’Charley’s, this morning told investors and analysts that, in trying to drive traffic to his restaurants, his crew isn’t interested in deeply discounting the meals it offers now. Doing that instead of coming up with new offerings, he said, is simply “transferring value to the guest somewhat at the expense of the shareholder.”
“We’re trying to find the right balance between profitability and driving guests. It’s clear that value is the dominant message and we’re trying to do it in a profitable way.”
On what was otherwise a rather tame call – as is often the case when expectations are met – one moment of suspense came from Morgan Keegan analyst Robert Derrington, who pressed CFO Larry Hyatt on why the company wasn’t raising guidance for the full year when it beat its own third-quarter estimate. In keeping guidance flat, Derrington wondered, was the company implying that business is going to get worse?
Not quite, said Hyatt. But the consumer spending picture is very murky and the fourth quarter is generally on the slow side, so sticking your neck out on guidance just doesn’t make sense, especially when operating costs are pretty much fixed at this point.
“The fundamental question is sales. We don’t have any more visibility into fourth-quarter sales than we suspect anyone else does.”
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Don’t believe the bad news
Posted on at 9:30 am
Mark Perry says reports of discouraged and disenchanted consumers need to be discounted a good bit. The world looked just as bleak coming out of the last few recessions.
Consumer confidence remained low for two years following the end of the 1990-1991 recession and it took about three years for consumer confidence to rise to the pre-recession level. The circled pattern following the 2001 recession was similar.
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Why Cracker Barrel will do better than Buca
Posted on October 27, 2009 at 12:11 pmIt’s as simple as providing value and not getting greedy.
“Casual dining got awfully pricey for what it was delivering to consumers,” he said. “It also overbuilt lots of stores. That hasn’t happened in family dining. They haven’t seen the large number of closings like casual and fine dining have. The higher the price point or check average, the poorer the business has become.”
SEE ALSO: CBRL chief Mike Woodhouse on branding
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‘A little less cautious’ versus ‘Crash for clunkers’
Posted on October 15, 2009 at 7:36 amSeptember retail sales came in better than expected, but opinions vary widely about where the consumer — and hence the economy — goes from here. Phil Izzo at the Journal collects some thoughts that span the spectrum.
While it looks like Wall Street employees will have the cash to buy holiday gifts, the country is a lot bigger and today’s retail sales give some pause to the notion that the economy has positively turned positive.
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Retail property market begins to groan
Posted on October 9, 2009 at 1:46 pm
Vacancy rates at strip centers reached a 17-year high last quarter, according to a new study. Rents haven’t dropped too much yet, but observers say it’s only a matter of time.
“Since asking and effective rent growth only turned negative about one year ago, it is daunting to observe this acceleration in decline in what has traditionally been regarded as a stable property type,” Calanog said.
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Genesco gets upgrade
Posted on September 24, 2009 at 10:55 am
Susquehanna analysts have upgraded shares of Nashville-based Genesco to ‘positive’ from ‘neutral,’ saying the company’s sales appear to be improving and that its lower rent costs give it ‘a certain margin of error‘ heading into the crucial holiday season. Genesco (Ticker: GCO) is up 2.5 percent this morning, bucking the broader market’s losses.
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The government’s money isn’t helping the people
Posted on at 8:01 amFormer Labor Secretary Robert Reich says all those federal billions being pumped into the economy aren’t making their way to the common man and woman.
Despite the happy Dow and notwithstanding the upbeat corporate earnings, most corporations are still shedding workers and slashing payrolls. And the big banks still aren’t lending to Main Street.
Trickle-down economics didn’t work when the supply-siders were in charge. And it’s not working now, at a time when — despite all their cries of “socialism” — big business and Wall Street are more politically potent than ever.
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Facecard’s consumer challenge
Posted on September 23, 2009 at 9:44 am
An analyst at Javelin Strategy & Research says Ed Braswell and his team at edo Interactive will have to work hard to get a large number of people to migrate to their form of plastic payment.
“If you have to concentrate spending on a credit or debit card, migrating that behavior from existing reward programs — migrating or extricating them from existing bank relationships — is always difficult,” Cundiff told the E-Commerce Times. “Any sort of attempt to engender changes on the part of consumers is always going to be difficult.”
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Looking for seniors who’ll part with their money?
Posted on September 21, 2009 at 1:44 pm
There are likely to be a bunch of ‘em Tuesday at Lipscomb’s Allen Arena, which will host the Expo 50 fair showcasing all kinds of products catering to the older crowd.
Products from hot tubs to walk-in tubs or a sunny vacation to a screened-in sunroom; services from Medicare advocacy groups to social opportunities will be on-hand in this gathering of senior living organizations. Entertainment, product demonstrations and informational seminars will be held throughout the day.
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